Getting in the Mooooood for Fall!

Talk about a chilly morning...I actually got out a sweatshirt and wore it for a while till I warmed up.  Woody got rained on lightly on his six mile walk this morning.  So he felt the chill also.  He enjoyed a sweatshirt for a while this morning also.  Mornings like these do make you "Think Fall!"  The whole day was quite nice...sun shone as we got on into the day, lower temperatures and lower humidity.  Pretty nice!

Woody went to the library this morning.  I stayed home and puttered around.  I am still working on getting a couple of loads of wash done.  This afternoon I put together the potato salad for Monday's Labor Day lunch.  This will give it time to meld the flavors together and get extra good and cold.  I made the recipe for potato salad that Melany gave us a few summers back.  It is called Lime and Thyme Potato salad.  It has lime zest, lime juice, and home grown fresh thyme (2 kinds=lemon thyme and English thyme). It uses sour cream along with mayo for the dressing.  It is a very refreshing potato salad.  I also dried some terragon in the microwave to replenish our supply.  While I was walking around getting the herbs, I did a little weeding.  Woody did some weeding and picking up of sticks today also.  He also shucked the corn for Monday's Labor Day lunch.  This afternoon I spent time getting tomorrow's Sunday School lesson ready.  Joseph spent some time over here playing with his various animals...today both farm and zoo animals.  He also played a couple of games on my iPad that involved animal sounds.  He had fun getting his plastic animals out like the animals he was hearing on the screen.  He would put the animal right up next to the screen...so when the goose was honking on the iPad, Joseph's goose was right up to the screen looking.  He also had fun sharing blueberries with Goosey (Woody).

I plan to print off my Sunday School notes and then finish the book that I am reading.  Woody is reading and watching a football game.

This Little Piggy Welcomes September

No real significance to tonight's photo.  I was looking for some ducks...as our weather is good weather for ducks...but found this fellow grinning at me so decided to use him in tonight's blog.  Back in March, when Woody and I went out on a drive so I could take pictures, we found a group of four or five pigs rooting around in the leaves right beside the road rather than in a pig pen...just wandering around freely.

I guess I could say that Woody went to market like the piggy in the nursery rhyme!  He headed off to do our weekly shopping in rather wet conditions.  He went to three stores.  While he was away, I got busy doing a couple of jobs that I could do that wouldn't get undone before my sister comes!  Cheryl will be here two weeks from today...so it is time to start doing some of the jobs that don't get done very often that need to be done...today's job was to wash the shower curtain in the guest bathroom.  I also stewed a chicken and deboned it and cut the meat up into bite size pieces and put them in the freezer...ready to make chicken salad while she is here.  My other cooking job of the day was to hard cook some eggs for our Labor Day picnic.  I need some for potato salad and also some for deviled eggs.

Several of the children were in and out playing with one thing or another today after they finished with their school next door.  Friday is my day off from school...so they didn't have school with me today.  They hadn't played with K'nex for a while and three of them got busy with those this afternoon.

We had leftovers tonight so I didn't have to cook for our supper.  Last night we had the pasta dish I made hot and tonight we had it as a cold salad...equally good hot or cold!  After supper, Woody went to visit one of his deacon family members and then also visited a new boy in his Sunday School class.

We have had quite a wet day...but nothing to compare to all the devastating rains west of us due to Harvey.  But we have gotten over an inch of rain in the last 24 hours. It is still raining lightly. The temperature is a bit on the cool side.  When I looked at the temperature about an hour ago it was 58...a feeling of Fall in the air as we begin September!

Harvey Shortened Game

Elijah's game got called due to rain...they did get to play for about an hour before the hard rain started to fall. I truthfully don't know what the score was...or what inning it was...I wasn't in the best place to see the score board and we were just trying to keep dry...umbrella up...umbrella down...umbrella up...I do know that the other team was ahead.  Elijah got to play 2nd base and right field tonight and had one at bat. I got wet enough that it was pretty chilly.  We both changed clothes pretty quickly upon getting home.

Woody got up early and walked this morning.  I had school with Joseph and Isaac and read with Abigail, Esther and Joy.  Then it was Elijah's turn for his science experiments with me.  The first experiment fizzed up and over...surprising us both!  One of the things that he learned about today was water surface tension.  He had a pretty fun time doing the several experiments that went with that.  The funniest thing was that after lunch, Joy came over and asked me to help with some of her science experiments...and...the ones she was ready to do were about surface tension!  She had a different one than Elijah did but the other one was like one of his and then we did one of his.  The favorite was getting a pan with water in it and then sprinkling ground pepper all over the surface.  You put a small amount of dish washing liquid on the tip of your finger and put your finger right in the middle of the pan...and the pepper all shoots to the sides.  They both liked that one and Joy had an audience when she did it...Esther and Elijah.  Elijah was telling her what to do next in the experiment!  I am only randomly picking different experiments that I read about online (that I have ingredients and equipment for) so I have no order so it was surprising that I would happen to choose the exact ones that Joy was doing today from her school textbook.  I rested for a while after all the excitement from the experiments and then went down and cooked our supper.  It wasn't long after supper till it was time to head off to the ball park. And, now that we are back, we are settling in for a quiet rest of the evening. I guess with the last sentence I will bid adieu to August!
 

Wet Wednesday

At least the afternoon has been wet...I guess we are getting a little...so far very little of the rain from Harvey.  I was looking at St. Louis Zoo pictures with Joseph yesterday and decided that this was a good one for a damp day!

Woody got up and walked this morning.  I had school with Joseph and Joseph and read with Elijah, Joy, and Abigail and had sewing time with Esther.  Esther got underway with cutting out the apron that she is planning to make.  Woody got some more reading done as he was able to give me the book that he was reading to return to the church library.  About as soon as I swallowed my last bite of lunch, I headed out the door to go to the church to work in the library.  The three of us got well underway with processing the new order of books.  It started sprinkling when I was heading to church.  I think that it rained while we were working.  Then it rained on me on my way home...but not hard.  Looks like we are out of the rain for the time being.

I came home to go through an order that I made.  I have been looking for towels for some time and just never found just the ones that I liked...I prefer a striped towel rather than a solid color...so finally found some in a catalog and took a chance on ordering them.  I popped them in the washer when I got home and then in the drier...talk about lots of fuzz!  The drier lint filter was full (and I had cleaned it just before drying these towels).  Then I shook them out...lint all over the floor in our bedroom...which caused me to have to vacuum. After that I used a lint roller on them and then picked off the remaining fuzz!  I hope that this fuzz doesn't continue...time will tell!  I am pleased with the colors in the towels...now we will see if there is anything left of the towels after they are washed several times and more comes out...perhaps they will soon be threadbare?!?  I hope not...I think that the initial wash will be the worse at getting the fuzz out.  Wonder if we will be covered with lint when we dry off with them!

Woody has pretty much stayed inside today except for his walk early.  He has read, done puzzles, studied his Sunday School lesson, and watched some TV.  I have mainly done school and library.  We had leftovers for supper...so that was an easy meal for me.  Woody has done the dishes.  Now I'm blogging and then I have to go prepare the experiments for Elijah's science experiment time with me tomorrow.  Oh, me...science isn't as easy to get ready for as sewing is!  Got to go plan exactly what we will do tomorrow during his long time...something fizzy...probably...hopefully nothing will blow up...well...maybe a balloon! I think that we may see a wetter Thursday and Friday than we did Wednesday.

Dinner Party!

Isaac might scare you off from this dinner party!  He did decide that after I took this one that he should have his silverware raised...but by that time Woody was ready to pray so this one will have to do!  Nathan, Kathy, Graham, Joy, and Esther are at our local Chick Fil A doing balloon animals and riding unicycles.  Abigail is at her volleyball game.  And Elijah, Isaac, and Joseph are hanging out with us.

We got back into school mode this morning...trying to establish a school routine!  I think that Joy said that they would be here for a bit longer stretch of time this time. Time will tell!

Woody has done a lot of reading today.  I brought him a book from the church library and he is "into" it.  I mainly did school and then puttered around till the boys came over this afternoon.  They have had fun playing with lots of things.  At the moment the Osmo things have come out for the iPad.  They're running a pizza store at the moment.  Elijah is the manager...I think!  He is the one who can make change!  Something to keep them occupied here till their family returns...a change in what they had been doing.

Woody plans to walk to the prayer room once all the little chickens are back in their own roost!  There is a possibility that he might need to get Abigail from her game.

Late Night at the Ol' Ball Park!

It's Fall Ball season in Tullahoma.  Elijah is playing on a player pitch team for the first time. He is on the Bucks team...the teams in Fall Ball are named after college teams.  His team, the Bucks, get their name from the Motlow College team.  Motlow is our local community college. He played right and left field and had one at bat.  I'm sure that he came away a happy camper since he didn't get hit by a player pitched ball AND his team won by one point. So now we have a volleyball player (Abigail), a player pitch player (Elijah) and two softball players (Joy and Esther).  Looks like our evenings will be a lot more active than usual for a while!

Woody got up and walked early this morning.  I didn't have school as the neighbors didn't get back from their latest ministry trip till a little before lunch today.  I set the morning aside for sewing...but didn't do much sewing as I am in the midst of fitting a pattern.  I cooked supper and just barely got mine eaten before it was time to head off to the ball field.  I went with Nathan, Kathy and family as Woody was going to the Monday night prayer meeting before he headed to the ball park.  Nathan and family had to leave early as there were lots of drop-offs before getting to the ball field...Abigail had a swimming party for her volleyball team, Graham had a Civil Air Patrol meeting, their van needed gas...so we were quite the gadabouts before we finally got to the ball park.  Woody got to the ball park just as the game was getting started.  We watched the game...and now we are home...and it is just about time for bed!

Some Saturday!

 We have had quite a busy Saturday...one thing happening after another.  Woody was busier than I...but the day still has seemed to be a bit of a whirlwind even for me.  We both got up really early. I got up and decided to sew and Woody headed off for his early morning walk...these days it is really quite pleasant early...one might even say that it is cool in the early hours.  Woody headed off before 9am to go to a meeting at church for the deacons to meet a prospective pastor.  On his way home from church, he stopped at the library for his usual Saturday visit.  By the time he got home it was almost time for lunch.  He made his Crispy Quinua Burger recipe...I think that he wanted a sandwich that he could use the pickle relish that we made yesterday!  By the time he got those made and the mess cleaned up, it was almost time for the two of us to go to church for a reception for the prospective pastor and his family.

After we got home, I had Woody drag the hose and sprinkler around to the front yard so I could give some of our plants a much needed drink. I even did a little deadheading.  After moving the sprinkler around the front yard to several different places, I headed back inside to cool off and to go back to sewing.  I am hemming my pajama top...so at last it is almost finished.  I hadn't sewed in several days, but wanted to get this project finished and the scraps, etc. cleared out of the way.  I ended up taking a little snooze after wrangling the hose around..couldn't keep my eyes open with the monotony of the needle going in and out!. Now I am going to go finish with the hems and be done with another sewing project.

In tonight's picture there are a couple of creatures sitting up on the silo...not sure how easy it is to spot them without them being pointed out.  I will show you in a photo zoomed on these lovlies (not) here at the end of the blog.  Lots of times there are things lurking in my photos that aren't noticable at first glance!  Now check out the top picture and you will easily spot them even though they are what probably just looked like small black specks before knowing these guys were sitting up there.